


Aftermath

by Rose_Rassmusen



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: I have no idea how to tag this help, John-centric, M/M, One sided, Other, Wakes & Funerals, platonic John/Sherlock, post-richenbatch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_Rassmusen/pseuds/Rose_Rassmusen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Richenbatch. Sherrinford attempts to convince John that Sherlock is alive, and still loves him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE thanks for empresspinto for beta'ing.  
> The summary is vague because why not?

They met at a funeral. Not just any funeral, either. It was Sherlock Holmes’s funeral, and though they hadn’t cared much for Sherlock in his lifetime, each and every one of the Holmeses showed up. Violet Holmes, in her traditional black attire, black hat with puffy lace, looking so very old in her black woolen dress. Mycroft, looking as professional as ever, had traded the gray suit for a black one, and even if he looked frigid, anyone could tell he was holding back tears. And lastly, the often forgotten Holmes child, Sherrinford. She was dressed in the nicest black dress anyone could have imagined, casting a sleek and beautiful silhouette on the grass in front of Sherlock’s grave pit. She looked detached from the scene, reminding the more observant mourners of Sherlock himself, the way he looked at a crime scene. Her hair was dark and curly like his, though much longer and currently rolled up in a side braid for mourning. Her features were also eerily similar, and though she was much more socially adept, there was nearly no difference between them age wise.  
Mycroft’s speech was fairly traditional, speaking of Sherlock’s best qualities, such as his intellect and his ‘bravery’, and though Mycroft appeared to use the word lightly, it held heavy meaning with him. Sherlock was brave, chasing after criminals, putting himself in the line of danger, nearly getting himself killed on multiple accounts, though to a person who knew Sherlock well, what appeared to be bravery was simply the pursuit of entertainment and enlightenment.  
As Sherlock’s coffin was lowered into the ground, only one of the Holmeses shed a tear, and she was immediately comforted by her remaining children, who quietly assured her Sherlock was in a place he couldn’t harm himself any longer. Sherrinford did not cry, she did not believe a need to. It might have been a flight of fancy, but she felt somewhere in her heart Sherlock was not in that coffin. It wouldn’t have been his wishes to have a closed casket ceremony, even if he were to be terribly disfigured by his death. In fact, Sherrinford knew her brother well enough to say he would have liked it better to have a disfigured face that everyone could enjoy, and analyse, just as he did.  
Sherrinford wanted to meet this John Watson she had heard all about, the one who had saved her brother’s life on many occasions and yet until now there had been no opportunity to speak with him. Now however, was different. They filled in the grave and rolled greenery on top, and many people left. Sherrinford stayed, standing off in the distance a ways as she watched over John as he spoke to Sherlock’s empty grave. She didn’t have to be next to him to know he was forcing back tears. As he walked away, Sherrinford made her move and walked towards him, making her way gracefully, though she was wearing heels.  
“Doctor Watson.” She greeted him from a few feet away, noticing the redness in his eyes. He looked up at her and tried to smile a bit, a small look of shock on his face.  
“Do I know you?” He sounded strung out, and probably was, but it was understandable. Sherlock had been his best friend and was now dead, having jumped off a building and forced John to watch. It had a certain poetic justice to it, Sherlock’s whole life revolving around rejecting attention and assistance, yet falling so deeply -if you’ll excuse the wording- for such a simple and ordinary man.  
She offered a kind, polite smile to John, hoping it would brighten this dark day just a bit. “I’m Sherrinford Holmes, I was Sherlock’s sister.” She held out a manicured hand. John wouldn’t notice the chemical stains, nor the small cuts up and down her fingers, faded from time. She never really was as handy with a scalpel as her brother.  
“I figured as much- I can see the resemblance.” He returned her smile a bit weakly, noticeably more relaxed, finding comfort in the familiarity of Sherrinford’s features. “You look... Just like him.” His eyes clouded over for a minor instant, though he quickly realized his mistake. “Not like a man, I mean, just... Similar. Your hair.” And the cheekbones, yes. Sherrinford knew she was exactly like her twin brother.  
“Twins.” She provided John, giving him a reason to stop sputtering.  
“Why haven’t I heard of you before?” He asked, more than slightly confused.  
Sherrinford released John’s hand and grinned slyly, reminding him yet again of Sherlock. “Mycroft doesn’t like to let me out of the house, He’s probably afraid I’ll run away with his assistant.”  
“So you’re into girls then?” John sounded almost disappointed.  
“I’m into attractive humans, not necessarily women.”  
“Oh, so then you’re-”  
Sherrinford cut him off, smiling grimly. “Don’t try to label me, Dr.Watson, you know it never works with Holmes’.”  
He was silent for a moment. “It must be hard, losing a sibling.”  
“Not really.” Sherrinford replied quickly. “No matter what happens to Sherlock, he’s part of me, quite literally.” She smiled, doubting that her words meant much to John.  
“Why did Sherlock never tell me about you?” John asked after a while. Mycroft may be secretive, but it was unlike Sherlock to keep something so huge from John for this long.  
Sherrinford’s smile faded a bit and she hesitated. “Perhaps we should chat over tea?” She suggested, hoping John would say yes. He was certainly not as boring as he was made out to be, and not nearly as heartbroken as she would have expected him to be. A second glance disproved her hopes by revealing John’s hand was sporadically twitching, and though the doctor himself was aware of it, he made no obvious effort to stop it. Didn’t want to seem vulnerable then.  
“Tea would be perfect, thanks.” he probably wanted to sit down at home and cry where no one would see him, but Sherrinford was having none of it. She wouldn’t let her brothers’ first and only love fall into despair over what she suspected was one of his silly little pranks to get noticed.  
“My house, then?” She asked him, walking slowly towards the entrance where she had called a cab a few hours ago, to arrive just then. “I hope you don’t mind, It’s a bit of a mess right now.”  
John nodded dismissively, a small mannerism from his military service. “Not at all” He told her, staying in step with her. She was much taller than he, though that might have been the heels, and it made him feel slightly nostalgic, remembering that this was Sherlock’s sister and not some woman who happened to share some of the same features.  
He opened the cab for her when they got to the parking lot and got in after her, feeling rather gentlemanly at her thanks. “Sherlock must have been difficult to keep.” She said after they had been driving for a few minutes.  
“I get that alot, but I didn’t really mind.”  
“No, I wouldn’t mind living with him either, but what I meant was that Sherlock has a tendency to run away from emotions rather than embrace them.”  
“Oh. He never ran away, not while I was living with him” It wasn’t quite true, there was that one time when John had accidently cleaned the bowl Sherlock was doing an experiment in and he had stormed out and hadn’t returned for a while, coming home in the early hours.  
“That’s because he loved you.” Sherrinford told John simply, shocking him. She had assumed he already knew, it would have taken an idiot not to notice it.  
“Hardly. He had me running halfway across london to get him a pen out of the drawer beside him.”  
“Because he can’t go a whole hour without seeing you.”  
“He nearly killed me.”  
“Accident.”  
“I shot a man to keep him from killing himself!”  
“You love him too.”  
“He’s dead!”  
The tears came as quite a surprise to Sherrinford, and she was taken aback by the sudden outburst of emotion, unsure what one would usually do in the situation. She supposed she should comfort him, but the only thing she could think of to do was perhaps a pat on the back? That didn’t seem the appropriate thing to do, so she just waited for John to collect himself.  
After a few seconds, John had gotten enough breath to speak without choking himself, and Sherrinford found herself apologizing.  
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” She awkwardly touched his leg in comfort. “I know it is probably more difficult than I could imagine, and I didn’t realize that.” The tears had come on so quickly, Sherrinford hadn’t even realized how close to a breakdown John was.  
“It’s not your fault.” John told her. “Do you have a napkin or a tissue?”  
She handed him the small wad of tissues she had brought for her mother, knowing that the woman would have forgotten them. “It really is, you could say it’s my job to know how people feel, and I have just driven you to tears. I honestly assumed you knew about my brother’s emotions for you.”  
“He didn’t have emotions for anyone, well, good emotions.” John wiped his eyes and held onto the tissue, embarrassed at his weakness. “I’m sorry for that.. thing that just happened. It’s been a hard day.”  
"That is to be expected, attending the funeral of a good friend such as Sherlock." she emphasized, still sounding far too detached for genuine emotion. "My brother worked a case a few years back." Sherrinford said suddenly, "a man rises from the dead after being sentenced to death for the murder of five young women, whom apparently met their demise by black magic." She looked over at Watson, the look on her face all too familiar, just waiting for John to connect the dots. He proved too grief-ridden to see it. "His magic was fake, but the method of 'raising the dead' was quite scientific. A chemical to stop the pulse for an entire ten minutes, and then restore it." It clicked. John looked over at her, blind rage apparent in his eyes. Not at her, he could see, but at the notion that Sherlock could have gone and faked his death. They were both thinking it, she knew.  
"What are you implying?" He demanded.  
She lifted her hands slightly in both an offer of peace and defensive measure, lest the ex-army doctor get violent. "And another! Stacey Gray survived a fifty foot drop by slowing her fall incrementally, using her jacket and arms like a bird and controlling the position in which she landed."  
John stared at her, his jaw set in a straight line. "Whatever you're trying to say, you're wrong. Sherlock is dead. He left. There is no coming back, and for you to think he's what, still alive? Is ridiculous."  
Sherrinford looked at him seriously. "I’m just trying to say that he had the tools to theoretically fake a death. My brother wouldn't kill himself. Not on purpose."  
John glared at her. “Stop the car.” He ordered sternly. He shifted and straightened his clothes, waiting for the cabbie to obey.  
“Do as he says...” Sherrinford sighed.  
As the car stopped, John got out, leaving the door open for a moment more. “I hope that your speculations give you hope, but I’m not going to be dragged in to your false promises. Sherlock is dead and he’s not coming back.” With that, he slammed the door shut and started walking away from the cab, the slight limp in his step obvious only to Sherrinford.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to suggest something ever, please do. I'll get to it eventually.


End file.
